GITEX 2021: Forcepoint to Focus on Network Security, Data Protection, and Cloud Security

Jawad Toukna, the Director for Regional Sales at the Middle East and North Africa at Forcepoint, speaks about his company’s participation at GITEX 2021

Are you participating in GITEX 2021? If yes, which products and solutions will you be showcasing at GITEX Technology Week?
Forcepoint is participating in GITEX 2021 with two of our key distributor partners, Mindware and Starlink. Throughout GITEX, we will be running demos of all our key solutions. The highlight will be on Forcepoint’s Data-First SASE platform – our unique approach to securing hybrid and rapidly evolving computing environments.

Providing secure network access is only half the battle. Progressive organizations must also address the protection of precious information assets in perimeter-less networking environments. Forcepoint is revolutionizing data security by enabling users to safely access and use data anywhere they work.

Forcepoint’s SASE goes beyond just securing access to the web, cloud, and private applications. We put our industry-leading data protection at the centre of our SASE platform, giving customers unique control over how their data is used even after it is downloaded. We help customers make their people more productive and their business safer.

All products including network security (NGFW and SD-WAN), data protection (DLP, CASB) and cloud security (Secure Web Gateway and Cloud Security Gateway) will be on show.

What are your expectations from the event this year?
It’s good to get back to meeting with customers in person, and we are excited to share Forcepoint’s forthcoming refreshed channel partner strategy as well as demonstrate Data-first SASE. Gartner rightly identifies SASE as a philosophy rather than a single product. Adoption of SASE happens incrementally—addressing immediate business needs first, then expanding to solve other problems over time. During GITEX we’ll be working with enterprises to listen to their needs and requirements and offer consultancy on securing their cloud migration.

What will be your theme of participation at GITEX?
Companies have had to evolve rapidly over the last eighteen months, and the disruption caused by the pandemic has accelerated digital transformation timelines. The shift to a remote workforce essentially changed how employees interact with data, and Forcepoint will be working with customers and prospects at GITEX to address these challenges.

While some workers are returning to offices, hybrid working is a reality that’s here to stay. It’s imperative that companies maintain control of data and ensure that sensitive information is protected: organisations are rethinking their security policies to avoid a potential leak or breach. The industry needs a modern approach to cybersecurity. Forcepoint’s data-first SASE is based on a converged data protection platform, bringing together data protection and secure access to provide a user and data-aware risk/trust model.

How have your regional strategies changed in recent months?
Regardless of their location, enterprises need to react to rapidly evolving hybrid workforces and ever-expanding SaaS applications. The digital transformation the region has gone through in the last year is extraordinary. Prior to COVID-19, only ten percent of workers in the UAE reported working from home one to two days per week, compared to a global average of 62 percent, according to a 2019 survey by International Workplace Group. This means that the trend to transition to the cloud was accelerated, and the network perimeter has truly dissolved.

Recently the head of UAE Government Cyber Security told CNBC that the UAE had seen a 250% increase in cyberattacks in 2020, while data breaches in Middle Eastern countries cost an average of $6M per incident, according to an independent report commissioned by IBM Security. Data is the building block of today’s digitized economy and the opportunities for innovation and malice around it are incalculable.

We see Forcepoint’s data-first SASE strategy as the way forward for organizations in the Middle East and we are investing in the solutions and offerings to support this. Forcepoint recently acquired Cyberinc and Deep Secure – and this is just the beginning of the many investments in the months and years ahead as Forcepoint executes our mission to strategically build, partner, and acquire technologies to innovate the industry’s best-in-class SASE architecture that helps secure and enable our customers’ business.

Forcepoint is providing security for hybrid and rapidly evolving computing environments, with converged security offerings delivering secure network access, protection of precious information assets, and delivery of unified secure access and data protection that spans on-premises, hybrid, and cloud.

Data-first SASE ensures customers can secure data access and usage, by closing down attacks and opening up data use. Today’s reality is that people are working from everywhere, and progressive organizations must address the protection of precious information assets in perimeter-less networking environments.